


5 Times...

by oneiriad



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-29 16:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneiriad/pseuds/oneiriad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack, James and a story told three times 5 times...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 5 Times James Norrington Lost a Button of His Breeches

1\. He has barely been a midshipman for a month. They are in London, and the young gentlemen have been given leave to explore the town. Somehow he is seperated from the others (which means that it will be several years before he gets to see the menagerie at Tower - something the other boys aboard will make sure he never forgets) and stumbles into the less savory part of the docks, where harbour rats and cabin boys run in packs and pick on easy targets. A strangely gypsy-like boy interrupts the fight before it gets too out of hand, but he is still punished for the deplorable state of his uniform upon his return to the ship.

2\. The night before Jack Sparrow is due to hang, he dismisses the guards from the jail and lets himself into the man's cell, intending to speak to the pirate, perhaps seek some form of absolution for what will happen come dawn. Alas, Sparrow has been drinking steadily all day, thanks to some unknown benefactor. As soon as James is inside the cell, the pirate stands, unsteadily, and takes a swing at him. And another. So, of course, James is forced to retaliate. Somehow it ends with the pair of them lying on the dirty hay on the cell floor, clothes so thoroughly in disarray that James' won't even know that a button or two has gone astray until his housekeeper complains about it the next day, sharing the bottle of killdevil and words that the killdevil will drive from his mind. It's not absolution, but it is something.

3\. He is standing wet and dripping all over the English merchantman's deck and his uniform is waterlogged and filthy, the missing button of the breeches the least of his concerns. He stumbles to the side and is sick into the pure blue waters of the Mediterranean. Sailors are talking, pounding his back, telling him he has been fortunate, very fortunate, that they were there to pick him up. Privately, he can't help but feel that he would have deserved it if rescue had instead come in the shape of one of the Barbary galleys, that it would have been more just to each soul lost to Davy Jones' locker due to his obsession.

4\. A button is lost one day in Tortuga, a victim of nothing more than common wear and tear. Far more memorable is the night he wakes to see the "lady" he retired with sitting bent over his uniform. At first he thinks she has some seamstress in her and a kindly soul. Then he realizes that she is industriously pick, pick, picking at what little gold lace is left on his ruined uniform.

5\. It is at Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann's often delayed wedding. There is a maze, full of hidden nooks and crannies. There is a very impatient pirate. I'm sure you can imagine the rest of it yourselves...


	2. 5 Times Captain Jack Sparrow Didn't Mind the Rum Being Gone

1\. On the third morning, when he wakes to find the rum runners' hole in the ground empty, he looks up and smiles at the chance to get off this god-forsaken spit of land, a chance to find his Pearl again. Even if it would have been nice with a bit of hair of the dog, savvy?

2\. That morning on the beach outside of Singapore when he sees the dragons. A pair of them, huge, sinewy and beautiful - almost as beautiful as the Pearl herself. Every single scale reflecting the light of the morning sun like a multitude of gems and jewels, as the pair make the beast with, well, the way they're going at it it has to be the beast with a very high number of backs. Anyway, he's actually kind of glad he doesn't have any rum right then and there, because then he couldn't be quite as certain that they're actually there for him to see, savvy?

3\. On the day of his hanging, the day his feet are once again walking on his Pearl's deck, his hands on her wheel. Who has time for worrying about petty things like rum right then and there? He can't even be bothered about it, when he learns that his fine crew, in their hurry to save him from the Navy, has not had time to take aboard a reasonable amount of supplies (i.e. the only rum aboard is in Mr. Gibbs' pocket flask and even accusations of mutiny cannot make him surrender it).

4\. At dear William and Lizzie's wedding (which is a very nice wedding, even though the bride has prohibited the presence of rum - he doesn't even have to hold the vicar at gunpoint this time, unlike another Turner wedding he can think of). Anyway, there's no rum, admittedly, but there is an Admiral Norrington, looking ever so tasty in his new uniform. How is a simple pirate supposed to resist having himself a taste or two - or three or many, many more?

5\. The morning after said wedding, when he is standing in the fine Admiral's fine kitchen - and the fine Admiral's housekeeper plucks the only bottle of rum in the house right out of his hands, without as much as a by-your-leave - oh, he minds then. Vocally so. Right up until she stuffs the first finished rum ball into his mouth. Afterwards, he will make it a habit to leave bottles of rum in that kitchen, surreptiously-like, savvy?


	3. 5 Times James Norrington Thought Like A Pirate

1\. He is young - has only been a lieutenant for a few weeks. The political winds have shifted, war has been declared. "Sail ho" and the flag flown by the merchantman has the crew excited. He gets caugh up in the excitement, finds himself smiling like a wolf at the thought of the prize money that will be his share. He is young. It's hard to blame him.

2\. She was supposed to be his. His wife. He loved her, he deserved her. More than that blacksmith boy ever could. And was he not well within his rights to take her? She had given her word, he could make her keep it. Nevermind a girl's childish fantasies about pirates. She would become used to being his wife and the mother of his children. All he had to do was take her. It was simple, easy, tempting. But if he did, what kind of a man would that make him?

3\. He has lost everything. His ship, his men, his rank. The letters are sealed, sent - there's no way back. No way forward either, that he can see. Where to go? Where would that damn Sparrow go? It comes to him in a whisper, late one night, and he thinks, "Well, why the Hell not?" The next day he takes passage for Tortuga.

4\. It has been an insane fight, three men fighting each other over something as ridiculous as a key. It has felt as if part of him has been outside of himself, making snide comments about the insanity of it all. Three men fighting over some mythological chest? A mill's wheel? Strange sea-creatures? Madness. But then he finds himself at the boat, alone for a moment. The boat with the letters of marque (and what strange madness of Sparrow's, to have not left those aboard the Pearl, but who is he to complain?). Somehow, he manages to take in the state of the boat as he fumbles around and when his eyes fall on the jar of dirt, something adds up. Take what you can. He does.

5\. The wedding festivities are dragging out. There has been dancing, dining - now both children and adults are entranced by the Laterna Magica show that is just a small part of the good Governor's present to his beloved daughter and son-in-law. James stands to the side, sipping his wine. To the other side of the crowd stands a certain pirate. Their eyes meet. Jack smiles. James hesitates for a moment, then nods in the direction of the maze. Jack grins, the flickering light reflecting in his gold teeth. James puts his glass down and starts walking. Enough of dreams - this time he'll take what he can and give nothing back.


End file.
